Unexpected Cliches
by Sheamaru
Summary: Smoker muses on yet another opinion that always separated him and Ace: rainy days. Deathfic. SmokerxAce.


**Title:** Unexpected Cliches  
**Series/Disclaimer:** One Piece, I don't own it either.  
**Pairing/Characters:** No pairing. Smoker, Tashigi & Ace.  
**Warning:** Angst, which shouldn't really need warning.**SPOILERS: For One Piece Volume 55.**

**Author's Note:** I know. It's somewhat unbelievable that I'm writing One Piece fandom. But since I've been in South Dakota with Crickey and Phox, I've been getting into some really strange pairings.

Anyway. I've only recently gotten into One Piece and while I'm on the thirties in episodes, I'm only on book two! So, technically, I haven't even _met_ Smoker and Ace. But! If you know me, you know I love my research. And Crickey is a huge fan, so I like to think that she's been keeping my Smoker in check.

**Tread lightly if you fear spoilers!**

With the recent chapters out, I know a lot of fans are worried about Ace's outcome. An author I really admire on y!Gal and on dA (moya), wrote a fanfiction revolving around Luffy and Zolo after Ace's death. Since I'm a huge Smoker fan, I had to give it a shot!

**Alright, resume walking normally!**

So, I hope it looks alright. I really appreciate hearing if my Smoker is acceptable, just for some insight if I decide to keep writing. Enjoy!

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Smoker did not like rain.

People who met him, who knew even the faintest legends of the Devil Fruit, assumed that being a logia was the reason. They assumed, and Smoker never cared much to _correct _them, that all water made him uneasy. That it was a natural occurrence for someone who could not swim to dislike water. As if some part of his mind was convinced that, despite the fact he was _standing _on concrete, all water would eventually be his demise. That even places incapable of flooding, would flood just to end his life.

This wasn't the case, but if Smoker cared about those sorts of things, rumors and chatter behind his back, then he would be a weaker, far more paranoid man.

The truth was, he had never liked rain. Even as a child, he wouldn't go outside and splash around in puddles with other kids who seemed determined to frustrate their parents with soaked clothes and muddy boots. Warm rain, cold rain, a light drizzle, or a heavy storm. He didn't like it. There was something uncertain about any weather that he couldn't see clearly in; he didn't like being _uncertain_.

While eating the Moku Moku no Mi was not the reason he didn't like rain, it certainly didn't make him like it any _more_. Particularly with his chain smoking of twin cigars that were so susceptible to moisture. Even if the direct contact of a couple of drops didn't manage to put them out, the suddenly moist air would often ruin their flavor. He wouldn't put them _out_, of course, so he had to sit there smoking two not-as-good-as-they-should-be cigars which never did anything to help his mood. Then again, not much did _anyway_.

Truthfully, he hadn't realized it was raining until Tashigi found him, staring absently at the sea, and asked him what he was doing. She hadn't made a sentence of it. Her young, soft voice cut through the air with only the word "Captain" punctuated by a question mark that lifted her voice. She avoided the word Commodore, though when she explains it later to her superior's grim expression she will say otherwise. That "avoided" wasn't the right word. The more recent title just...vanished. As if eaten by the past, swallowed whole by his older title. His _real _title.

But, that time is not now.

Smoker did not exist in a haze. He did not sleepwalk or make absent gestures without the consent of his mind. When he looked into that distance that was specific to each person and their thoughts, he was never lost in it. His eyes were always sharp, alert. He could think without sacrificing his defenses. He could turn thoughts over for hours without ever letting someone get the best of him. A mind was a tactical device, not an uncharted portion of sea waiting to be mapped out. He knew this without question.

But...he had no answer for his subordinate. Had she asked him out he got there, he would have told her he walked. He could have told her the route he took off the ship if she wanted it. The one that lead him to the shore where he now watched waves lap with the ferocity of a mild storm against the stone. Had she asked if he was alright, he would have told her to go back to the ship. That he would return shortly, and she was a fool for worrying about him. If she had asked him any other question, any other curiosity that came to her talented, albeit naive mind, her Captain would have had an answer for her.

Except, Smoker did _not _know what he was doing. He tightened his jaw, injuring the already beaten cigars that remained drenched and unlit between his teeth. They didn't fall away completely, simply sagged like frail tree branch with too much weight on it. Still, he acknowledge their uselessness without looking at them and reached up to envelope them in his gloved hand. It was dim with the storm but not dark. He could see their lifeless, dead forms against the brown of his gloves. _Ruined_.

"Sir?"

Thin lips turned down at the edges, his mouth a foreign feeling on his face now without the cigars to hold. His jaw slackened, brow furrowing. Tashigi's quiet, worried voice hit him like catching a blade with his jutte, sending vibrations throughout his body. Did she assume the worst? Finding her water-inept Captain standing so close to the sea, in the middle of a soft storm, soaked...the toes of his boots not six inches from the ledge. What else could she assume?

"I didn't come out here to kill myself," he growled. The fortitude of his voice surprised her - Smoker was more disturbed by the realization that it surprised _him _as well. He turned, looking at her over a broad and uncovered shoulder, "So stop looking at me like that. It's getting on my nerves."

Tashigi hesitated, watching him from behind her glasses for a few seconds, as if trying to make sure the face she saw was real - as if trying to _memorize _it. He ignored it, pushing the reasons for such a look aside to continue glaring. Eventually, she conceded. Her head lowered, shoulders sank. Only then did Smoker look forward again, but it was like rolling over from a comfortable sleeping position. He couldn't get back what she had trespassed on by making him turn around. It both irritated and soothed him.

"I just..." she started, even those two words so unsteady. Balancing on a thin rope suspended over an endless pit. He could imagine her fisting her hands at her sides, her eyes welling with tears, _weak_. 

_Kind_.

"Don't be stupid, girl," he meant to snap. He didn't. More anger bounced on his shoulders, the muscles tensing. Aching in their cold stiffness. "It wouldn't change it."

So many words hung with waiting potential on the air, undeterred by the wind or the rain. He could have pointed out that even if he _had_ come out here to kill himself, she wouldn't have been able to do anything. He could have broken down, told her some gross amount of pain that he was in. That he had _been_ in over the past several weeks. He could have strung the conversation on, had her equally wet and cold arms try to comfort him. First with hesitation, then assurance. Convincing herself that it either wasn't happening, or that this was just another way to be their for her Captain. Her leader. _Him_.

"Bullshit," he muttered, tightening his grip on the two mutilated cigars. His heat tipped forward a bit, the rain having forced his usually slicked back hair to submit some time ago. Short curls of it fell against his forehead and temples, clinging with the increased moisture. _Annoying_. "All of this is fucking _bullshit_."

His other hand tightened at his side, the glimpse of something striped with white and red wasted on Tashigi's poor vision through the rain. Some part of the Marine was aware of the bracelet's ability to be seen, even if the only other person with him had never known of its presence. He rolled his fingers, pulling it back and hiding it completely within the palm of his hand. Protecting it from the rain. Protecting it the way he had failed to protect its owner.

It was such a stupid thought. It wasn't like he had been Smoker's responsibility. Not that way at least. His duty was to catch pirates, not want to _save _them. He wasn't suppose to protect any pirate, no matter who they were or how close they got. He was a Marine, _dammit_, it was his _job_. Justice was his life's work, putting away pirates. Protecting innocent people, innocent towns. Pirates were bad, by nature, title, and years of evidence. He didn't _protect _bad things. He caught them, _stopped _them, and turned them over for their rightful _punishment_. It wasn't his responsibility.

And still he felt like he'd _failed_. He could feel the solid, physical evidence in his palm. It's shape, vaguely radiating with a sort of warmth previously, now burned its mark through his glove. It singed his palm, shooting a pain up his arm and straight to something in his chest. Like a trigger for some secret function of his body, his lungs suddenly felt small, his head light and his insides empty. He felt like he had jumped into the water, unable to move. To breathe. Weak, just _waiting_ for death...because he had nothing _else _to do. What _was _he doing out here in the rain? Watching the water and slowly acknowledging the silent, slow death of the usual cigars held between his teeth? Was he mourning? Thinking? Remembering? Forgetting? The heat from the bracelet in his hand, he now realized, was more like a day old burn than the living burn of candle. It was cruel in that sense. A faint memory of something pleasant...but not quite pleasant itself. He had the opportunity to chase it, but the Commodore's body stayed still. Chasing memories was as stupid as the guilty feeling in his chest. It had no _place _where it was, but still he could feel it's hold clawing so deep it was more as though his soul was bleeding than any tangible organ inside him. He had never been one for talk of souls, really, but the depth of the feeling suited the word. He buried that inside, the safest, most untouched place he could.

It's where he put everything. Every afternoon, every night, every heated breath on his neck, every warm body curling into his chest. He locked every stupid conversation, every argument, every fight as Marine and Pirate, every fight as lovers inside. He tucked them in some fictional, smoke encased box inside himself and put it somewhere. Somewhere away from the front of his mind, where they had hazed his vision to the point Tashigi noticed it, somewhere _protected. _For some people, burying such important things was dangerous. For Smoker it was business. It had to be. It wasn't that it was easier that way, it was simply that he was _not _going to kill himself. The thought had been less than a fleeting breeze across his mind.

But if he was going to _live _with whatever this feeling was, then he needed his head on straighter now more than ever. One death was not a ripple effect of similar situations. The man he remembered did not surround himself with people weak enough to succumb to such ideas. And if there had been a crack, a single person to slip through that keen radar? It would _not _be him.

When he finally relaxed his hand, his eyes were shut tight and his shoulders shook with all the motion of a shiver. If he had been crying, he couldn't tell with the rain hitting his face. His eyes didn't burn, though his throat ached and his lungs still felt too weak for his size. The muscles of his face were still lax, his nose didn't run. But his heart felt like a muscle he'd rather have removed than deal with any more. He was exhausted, but knew he would not sleep. Still, he was composed. He remained composed. He had for weeks, he would continue to do so for weeks to come.

Tashigi stood in silence as he let the cigars slide from his outstretched hand into the sea below him. She didn't even tense when he moved closer to that depth that could so easily seal his fate. Her Captain was honest. He wouldn't jump in and embrace death like that. She felt stupid for thinking he would have in the first place. As if she had, for a moment, stopped trusting him. Shame, if anything, kept her still.

Smoker didn't hesitate after the cigars slid from his hand. He turned with easy rigidness, and headed back towards his second-in-command. For the first time in weeks, she felt as though he were seeing her - even as his gaze fixed forward and over her head. She waited for him to pass, turning to follow two steps behind. Her place there once again had all the comforts of being curled up in bed in her cabin. It felt of belonging and assurance.

The rain hadn't stopped even when the Marine vessel came into sight.

"Did he like rain?" Her voice was sure, unwavering. Her Captain was strong, such a question wouldn't phase him. Not now.

"Yes."

The word was simple. Three letters, but a meaning completely of its own design. It spoke of a wet, gray day when two voices could be heard from Smoker's cabin. Two voices, first arguing, then settling to silence. Even the occasional murmur slipping away as time passed. People who passed by often enough, who listened well enough, could put the pieces together. Pieces that formed a picture of _two_ sleeping bodies on the couch inside, entwined so gently and yet so naturally. Not Marine and Pirate. Not even smoke and fire. Simply two sleeping people, both tired by the gray day, who were uninhibited by the patter of rain beating uselessly against the windows.

Ace had been surprisingly fond of rainy days.


End file.
